


Near Beyond The Moon

by Black_Crystal_Dragon



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Canon Continuation, Coda, Episode: s06e01-e02 The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon, Explanations, Homecoming, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Missing Scene, Old Fic, Period Typical Attitudes, Post-Episode: s06e01-e02 Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon, Returning Home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:41:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29476401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Crystal_Dragon/pseuds/Black_Crystal_Dragon
Summary: He walked up the path towards the house. He had woken up in the night dreaming of this walk, this house. Their house, he thought as he reached the porch. Might as well use the terminology he had been so keen to impress upon his partner before he left. His dreams had always ended right here, on the doorstep, uncertain whether they ought to be happy or sad. Only one way to find out.After he's done helping the Doctor, Canton Everett Delaware III goes home.
Relationships: Canton Everett Delaware III/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 2





	Near Beyond The Moon

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in 2011/12, first posted online (with minor tweaks) in 2021 for International Fanworks Day. I don't quite know why, but I really like this one.
> 
> Title from 'Somewhere Beyond The Sea' and also in response to Nixon's comment in the show: "I think the Moon is far enough for now, don't you, Mr Delaware?"
> 
> Period typical attitudes are only mentioned. I fully appreciate that it's probably not realistic for Canton and his partner to be living together given those period typical attitudes, but please suspend your disbelief for the next 3,000-ish words. Thanks. :)

There were only so many strings Nixon could pull.

He scrubbed Canton’s record clean of any ‘problems with authority’, gave him an honourable discharge from the FBI, and sent him home no questions asked. He even arranged for him to borrow one of his drivers and a car. It was more than Canton had personally hoped for, with or without the Doctor’s recommendation. It might have been nice, he thought as he climbed out of the car, if Nixon had given him his old job back — but the people he had worked with in the FBI knew too much, and if they didn’t know they would have heard rumours. Life in the Bureau would be hell, and he didn’t want to return to suspicion, with no one willing to look him in the eye. It was only thanks to the kind wording on his file and the fact that he had been working with a whole different branch of the secret service that he had survived the past few months in the field. And that in itself had been hell.

Maybe that was why he had said, ‘He is,’ with all the emphasis on the pronoun. He didn’t want to go back to lying to his colleagues for fear of what they would think, or do, if they knew the truth about him. It had eaten him up inside at the Bureau, for all that he had loved the job.

He walked up the path towards the house. He had woken up in the night dreaming of this walk, this house. Their house, he thought as he reached the porch. Might as well use the terminology he had been so keen to impress upon his partner before he left. His dreams had always ended right here, on the doorstep, uncertain whether they ought to be happy or sad. Only one way to find out. He raised his thumb to the doorbell.

Canton shoved his hands into his pockets and tried not to fidget. He was guessing that Eric would be here: he had no way of knowing. He hadn’t dared to pick up the phone in case it went unanswered. The last time they had spoken was more than three months ago, and their parting words had been in anger. Eric calling him a fool for throwing his career away; Canton adamant that he wouldn’t have it any other way. A slammed door and three months of silence.

He wouldn’t blame Eric if he had walked. A man could only be so patient.

He could see no movement through the frosted glass panels in the front door. His fingers found the front door key deep in his pocket: not lost, just purposely forgotten. He wondered if he ought to press the bell again, and decided against it. He didn’t want to be pushy. He gave it another couple of seconds, then stepped back and peered at the upstairs windows for signs of life. There was nothing, not even a twitching curtain.

Canton heard the door open while his head was still tipped back.

“Finally decided to come home, hm?” The Mississippi accent rolled out and dealt him a blow straight to the heart. Warm, familiar, yes, but the tone meant they weren’t okay yet.

That was fine. He hadn’t been expecting to be welcomed with open arms. He didn’t deserve that. But that Eric was here at all was enough. He had waited. Nobody did that unless they wanted to be found waiting.

“Yep,” Canton said, not taking his eyes off the eaves. They’d had a new lick of paint since he had last been here: something he’d been meaning to do, or pay someone to do, since the previous summer. There had never been time. Even after he had been fired from the Bureau, he hadn’t allowed himself to stay at home. He had managed six weeks of subterfuge to keep Eric from finding out that his job was gone because of their relationship, heading out as if to work in the mornings and coming back after six at night. It didn’t leave much time for working on the house.

“Suppose you’d better come in,” Eric said, and finally Canton looked at him.

Eric was a damn good poker player, and he took his bland, blank expression with him when he left the tables. His face was a little like the house: the shutters all drawn closed so that there wasn’t even a chink to peer through. Except, did the corner of his mouth twitch in the suggestion of a smile as he turned away? Canton wasn’t sure. It could be his imagination, or a facial itch Eric couldn’t be bothered to scratch. But Eric was letting him in, beckoning him to follow with a casual sweep of one long arm as he disappeared inside. That had to be a good sign. Canton took a deep breath and stepped into the house.

It was darker inside, though the sky outside had still been gold and pink with the sunset. In the evenings, the front of the house was in shadow and Eric hadn’t yet flipped on the lights. By the time Canton arrived in the living room, he had taken a seat in the antique winged armchair that stood by the hearth, its back currently turned on the fireplace. It had belonged to one of Canton’s elderly relatives until the old lady had passed away and handed it down to him. Eric had never shown great interest in it, except to pass disparaging comments about the state of its bottle-green leather and tarnished brass studs. He had tolerated it, and abused it with good-nature, because it was Canton’s favourite. The way he sat in it now — long fingers curled around the ends of its arms, slouching so that he was perched on the very edge of the seat, legs sprawled across the carpet — told Canton that he was at ease there in a way that only came from getting used to sitting there. He’d been using Canton’s armchair, in the months that he had been away — using it though he didn’t even like it, though he always complained that leather was too cold for upholstery. There was only one reason why he would sit there, and that was to be as close to Canton as he could be while the man himself wasn’t there.

“Hope you don’t mind my taking your seat,” Eric drawled as if he had read what was on Canton’s mind.

“Not at all,” he replied, flashing a brief and too formal smile. His insides were too frozen up by surprise to allow for anything genuine.

Eric shifted his shoulders against the backrest, getting comfortable. He was still wearing his poker face, and Canton wasn’t getting any better at reading it, especially not in the half-light. He could have reached out and flicked on the lights, but instead he put his hands into his pockets again. He could play the game Eric’s way. Besides, he really ought to concede the man his choice of house rules. He was the one who had been living here.

“So, where’ve you been?” Eric asked after a few moments. “The secret service came knocking, not long after you left. I told them to try a few bars. I’m guessing they found you …”

“Yeah,” Canton told him. “I don’t suppose they told you what it was about?”

Eric laughed. “What do you think?”

“They didn’t mention, then,” Canton said, with a frivolity he didn’t really feel. Hell, the men the President had sent to fetch him probably hadn’t even known themselves. It wasn’t like the secret service would want all and sundry to know about strange phone calls that they couldn’t trace or block.

“No. Must’ve slipped their minds,” Eric said in a slow, sarcastic drawl. “The shock of seeing a black guy opening Mr Delaware’s front door probably knocked the thought clean out of their heads.”

Canton raised his eyebrows. “That bad?”

“Yeah, but I was pissed off, too,” Eric replied with the tiniest hint of a smile. “Last thing I wanted to open the door to was a suit, especially one looking for you. I think I scared them into being rude. What did they want?”

“The President wanted me for a special job. Needed someone outside the Bureau.”

The other man’s eyebrows lifted. He hadn’t been expecting that. “Oh?”

“I’m probably not supposed to tell anyone,” Canton said with a small smile. “And besides, you wouldn’t believe me.”

“You sign anything saying you couldn’t?” Eric said. They had been together for long enough for him to know how the FBI and the secret service worked. Those little pieces of paper that kept Canton’s mouth closed about the things that made him start awake in the night. 

“No,” he repeated, and Eric shoved himself to his feet. He took a couple of steps closer. His expression was no longer blank; now he was determined. 

“So tell me,” he insisted, pushing for answers that Canton wasn’t sure how to phrase. How could he explain the Doctor? Or the sometimes-invisible box that was bigger on the inside and moved through time and space? Or the threat he couldn’t quite remember that they had been fighting? Eric must have seen his eyes flicker, because he snapped, “And don’t you tell me I won’t understand. I don’t understand the half of what you do, and I’m still here aren’t I?”

Suddenly they weren’t talking about Canton’s work or the FBI or the official secrets that were locked inside his head. They were talking about why Canton had left that night and not come home, and why he hadn’t called or written in three long months. Canton swallowed and turned to look towards the window, unable to meet his partner’s eyes.

“I was working partly with the secret service, partly the Air Force,” he said, because it was true: Area 51 was guarded by the Air Force and under the jurisdiction of a service so secret he wasn’t even allowed to say it existed. They had made sure to swear him to secrecy on that. “But mostly with this man — this Doctor.” He took a deep breath. He had to say it some time, if Eric wanted the whole truth. “We were trying to stop these — aliens.”

“Is that right,” Eric said, apparently unfazed by the prospect of extra-terrestrial life. Canton looked at him, confusion wrinkling his brow, but Eric’s expression had shut down again. He folded his arms and nodded. “Go on.”

So Canton told him. The little girl, contacting President Nixon directly to ask for help. The Doctor and his three companions, and his magical, impossible Police Box. The Silence, what he could remember of them. The three-month-long hunt, on the pretence that the Doctor and his friends were responsible, and what came after. He ended with the subliminal message the Doctor had planted within the lunar broadcast. By the time he was done, the room was completely dark and Eric had sat back down in the leather armchair.

Canton couldn’t resist any longer. He reached out and flicked on the lights.

“Aliens,” Eric said in a flat sort of voice.

“Aliens,” Canton replied, trying to smile. “I told you you wouldn’t believe me.”

“You know, I imagined you saying a lot of things if you ever came back here,” Eric murmured. He smiled a little, shaking his head. “Not that, though. ‘I’m sorry,’ maybe. Or, ‘Get the hell out of my house.’”

Canton’s heart did something unpleasant inside his chest. He was surprised his voice didn’t break as he said, “I’d never say that.”

Eric’s eyes met his with the same, uncompromising stare he had given him the last time they had been together. “Like I said last time: I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”

Echoes of his own words rose in Canton’s memory: _What, you think I’m going to throw you out and go and beg for my old job back?_ That hadn’t been an option, not for a good long time — not for him, at any rate. He rubbed a hand over his face. He was tired of looking at Eric and seeing only a mask.

“And if I did, I could never forgive myself.” The words were out of his mouth almost as he thought them. Then, as if some dam inside him had cracked under the strain, he found himself unable to stop. “Jesus, Eric — don’t you get it? If I could, I would marry you tomorrow. But I can’t. So I don’t know what I have to do to prove that we’re not just a nine day wonder — I mean, losing my job over us doesn’t seem to be enough. You’re still expecting me to turn around and decide I’d be — I don’t know what. Better? Happier? Without you.”

“Were you?” Eric said in a very small voice.

Canton thought of the past three months, sleeping alternately in government funded hotel suites and a grim little military room at Area 51, dreaming every night of coming home. Wondering, in the quiet hours of each day, if he had anything to come home to. Thinking that he might be helping win the war against the aliens, at the cost of losing Eric.

“I was scared the whole time,” he said, meeting the other man’s gaze without flinching. “That you wouldn’t even be here to answer the phone.”

Eric’s chest deflated as he let out the breath had been holding and his shoulders finally sank out of the squared, defensive posture that Canton hadn’t really noticed until it was gone. The corner of the other man’s mouth twitched as he shook his head. In a rush of breath that was half laughter and half something else, something Canton thought might be frustration and might be misery, Eric said, “That’s a really lame excuse, Canton.”

“I know,” he replied. It was a strange relief to hear his name on Eric’s lips, as if that meant something. It probably didn’t, but nonetheless it was good to hear it — another little piece of home, falling into place. He wished that he could crack a smile, but his expression was frozen. He was too good at his job — his old job. He’d spent so long conditioning himself to wear this face instead of cracking that he couldn’t take it off even when he wanted to wear his heart on his sleeve. More than ever, he wanted to touch Eric, press their foreheads together and stare into his eyes until he understood. 

“You know you’re in the God-damn doghouse, right?” Eric said suddenly, but the bite of anger in his words was soothed by the way he stared across the distance separating them. The mask was gone now. Eric’s face was hardly an open picture-book, but Canton knew it well enough to see pain haunting the lines around his eyes, and fear in the curve of his mouth, caught open between a smile and a frown.

“Yeah, I know,” he said. Hope shifted in his chest, drawing a line of fire up the back of his throat that stung the backs of his eyes. He blinked and swallowed, licked dry lips.

“Right, then,” Eric said as he rose to his feet and stared evenly at Canton. He folded his arms. “I sure hope fighting aliens for Mr President paid well, there’s a stack of bills in the hall that want paying. With your name on them.”

Canton laughed; he couldn’t help it, even though he knew Eric wasn’t entirely joking. The words had dusted the last of the resentment out of the air, clearing away the final barrier that kept Canton trapped across the room. He strode over and wrapped his fingers around Eric’s shoulders. A grin was spreading across Eric’s face, as slow and lazy and warming as treacle.

“God, I missed you,” Canton murmured.

He shifted his grip on the other man’s shoulder, sliding his thumb along the inside of his collar. Eric’s arms unfolded, dropping to his sides, but he didn’t bend, didn’t bring himself down to Canton’s level, refused to make it easy and kept smiling like the cat that got the cream. Canton moved his hand again, never losing the skin-on-skin contact, until he could curl his fingers around the back of his neck and pull. Eric didn’t resist. Canton inhaled into the first press of lips and sighed against the second. Eric’s slender hands found their way under his jacket and hovered, barely touching, against his sides. He released Eric’s shoulder and let his hand skim down the other man’s arm, pulling it straight and catching hold of his fingers. His hands were cold, always cold, and Canton found that he had missed even that — even the ice that seemed to reside beneath his partner’s dark skin. The kiss broke, and Canton breathed against Eric’s mouth.

Eric’s eyes opened half way and regarded him up close. Canton’s vision was filled with pupils and near-black irises, long lashes, the lines that webbed out from the corners of his eyes. There was no hiding behind a mask when they stood like this, not for either of them.

“I’m sorry,” Canton said.

“Well, that’s a start,” Eric replied, and kissed him again.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: this fic was originally going to be a _Warehouse 13_ crossover in which Canton gets recruited to the Warehouse after helping the Doctor in '69. At some point, he was going to be zapped by a Nicholas Flamel artefact of some description that would freeze his aging, and then eventually he was going to become one of the Regents: Benedict Valda (also played by Mark Sheppard, hence the whole idea). His elderly appearance in 2011 was going to be an illusion courtesy of another Warehouse artefact. In my head, Canton took his husband's surname (Valda) when they got married, and changed his first name over time to avoid too many questions when he didn't age.
> 
> However, all I wrote of that entire idea was this opening scene. XD I think stands alone pretty well, which is why I've finally posted it.


End file.
